The Demon Lord reclined on a cloud couch in the gazebo, enjoying a little relaxed company with Drevarin, Sherinias and Mirra. Only a short while remained before they left, and he pondered Sherinias’ unhappy future. She deserved better, but there was no more he could do for her. Her visit to the mid realm might gain her more worshippers, but nothing would save this world now. Still, she would benefit from their prayers, which would make her happy, too.
Sherinias sat up with a gasp, her eyes wide. “My Lord, the Oracle warns me; demons are attacking cities.”
Bane created an Eye and swept it across Darjahan, frowning at the vista of burning buildings and fleeing people. Massive fire demons stomped along the streets, setting fire to all they touched. Giant earth demons pushed over skyscrapers and stamped out lives. Greater demons had the ability to become vastly larger when they wished, and it certainly aided in destroying a city. Dozens of demons in true form invaded the streets, sent the populace fleeing into buildings and made the flying traffic swerve and crash into buildings and other vehicles. Fire demons’ searing eyes left molten lines on concrete and tar, incinerating any humans or droges their glances touched. Air demons appeared as greyish-puce clouds and spread their foulness amid the fleeing people, killing dozens.
Sherinias gazed into her Eye, wiped her cheeks and sniffed. Apparently the demons had decided to cut the humans down to size before they could become a nuisance, or someone had whispered the idea into their thick stone heads. If they ruined this civilisation, they would push the humans back into a medieval era, or worse, and remove any threat. Even if all they did was a lot of damage, it would prevent the people from building ships and hunting them.
Bane waved away his Eye and rose to his feet. “I am going to dismiss a few of those bastards. I shall summon some, too, and send them against their fellows. It will not make much difference, but I dislike sitting around doing nothing.”
Drevarin looked up. “You could certainly chase them away.”
“They will just return.”
“It might give the authorities time to get more people to safety, though.”
“There is no safety from demons.”
The light god pulled a face. “True.”
Sherinias asked, “Is there nothing you can do to stop them, My Lord?”
Bane shook his head. “Unfortunately, I cannot destroy thousands of demons in a few hours, or even days. It would take months, perhaps years, to summon and destroy them all. Dismissing them will not help for long. They will not kill all of your people, though. They will leave some to play with, but they will destroy the technology.” He turned to Drevarin. “Will you come?”
Drevarin dismissed his Eye. “I thought you would never ask.”
Bane went over to kiss Mirra, and murmured, “Do you forbid me to go?”
“You promised. And do not say they are only demons!”
“Drevarin will guard my back, and Kayos doubtless watches over me. I will save thousands of people.”
She sighed. “People who hate you, and believe you are evil.”
“It might even change their minds.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
Bane kissed her again, then put a safe distance between them before he Moved. He rematerialised on the roof of a tower with a panoramic view of the beleaguered metropolis. A few warships fired silver cylinders at the demons, but, while the explosions blew chunks out of the giant earth demons and scattered smaller ones, they merely reformed. The missiles had even less effect on fire demons, which tore the ships from the air and burnt them.
The Demon Lord murmured the words of summoning and sent the dozens of demons that rose from the roof or flared from nearby fires to battle their brethren. Demonic duels to the point of defeat tended to be long drawn out, however, unless one was set upon by many. Still, it would occupy them, thereby saving lives. It gave him some satisfaction to use the darkness against itself. He would have destroyed all the evil in the city, but so many people were corrupt that he would slaughter most of them, too. That might not be such a bad thing, he mused, but not all of them were beyond redemption. He would just do the demons’ job for them. Demonic battles raged as his minions took on their fellows, which quickly overwhelmed them. It did not matter to Bane, as long as they were defeated, and he continued to summon more and send them into the fray.
Bane Moved to the street below, where a gigantic earth demon bashed buildings with stone fists, shattered windows and cracked walls, knocking chunks out of them. Screaming people fled along the road, dived into shops and vanished down steps that led to underground refuges, he assumed. Smaller demons pursued them, and Bane became invisible. The vast demon loomed over him, moving ponderously due to its size. Bane directed twin streams of black fire at its chest, blowing a crater in it. The demon staggered back into a building, which crumbled. Bane sent another pair of bolts into it, blowing it apart. Rocks, debris and soil rained down, shadows oozing from the settling pile to vanish into the pavement.
Bane strolled along, blasting smaller demons. Armed droges also slew the fleeing populace. A young woman bolted out of an alley and collided with Bane, shrieking, and he destroyed her droge pursuer. A fire demon attacked a group of screaming people, setting some alight. Bane obliterated it, and an air demon that swooped at a cowering man, its misty form bursting into a noxious cloud. Bolts of blue light and tiny projectiles zipped past, a few coming dangerously close, and gunfire echoed along the street. Although the light could not harm him, the projectiles would. He annihilated several more demons and dismissed scores.
Colonel Maynart burst into President Randoman’s office and strode over to his desk. “Sir, we’ve got to get you to safety. I’ve brought a protection detail, and -”
Randoman held up a hand, his eyes riveted to the wall screen, where a pale, dishevelled female reporter shouted into her microphone, her eyes wide and makeup smudged. “…Started about half an hour ago, and reputable sources say it’s happening in every city in Bayona. People are turning into monsters and attacking others, setting fire to buildings and destroying vehicles and infrastructure. We have visuals from Darjahan.”
The image changed to a chaotic scene of destruction, fire and mayhem in a city street. Frantic mobs fled giant creatures made of fire or soil, which stalked the streets, smashing, burning and bashing air cars down. Scores of people clutched their throats and collapsed.
Randoman asked, “Can you believe this, Colonel? Fiends! Hundreds of them!”
“Yes, sir. We need to go.”
“Those bloody dra’voren must have ordered them to wipe us out. That’s why they closed the gates!”
“We can’t defend the cities, sir. The fiends appeared right in the streets. Some people are attacking others, too. It’s total bedlam. I have a platoon waiting outside. We must get you to safety. The attacks started in the city centre, but they’re spreading. You’re not safe here.”
Randoman tore his eyes from the screen. “What ships do we have, and where are they?”
“All we have left are those that weren’t sent to the gate, and the ones that were recalled from the front after the war with Vockroy ended. Most of them are at the Andreth Mountains, trying to destroy the pentagram the dra’voren made there.”
“And? Any success?”
“No, sir. Nor at the monolith or the industrial area. They’ve tried everything, but the pentagrams are indestructible. Even a matter disruptor had no effect.”
Randoman stared at the screen again, barely able to believe what he was seeing. It looked like a scene from a bad horror vidimage. His wife enjoyed them, and he had sat through far too many for his liking. He wanted to pinch himself. “Evacuate the cities,” he ordered. “Get people to safety. Do we have any bunkers or… shelters?”
“A few sir, mostly close to the Vockroy border, but they won’t hold more than a fraction of the population.”
“We must do what we can. Recall the warships.” The president clasped his throbbing
temples. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any damned fiends in Bayona!”
“There weren’t, as far as we knew. Maybe the dra’voren brought them, or summoned them or something? Maybe that’s what the pentagrams did.”
The building shuddered, and dust drifted from the ceiling. Randoman rose and went over to the window. In the distance, gigantic earthen fiends shoved over skyscrapers, and fiery forms ripped buildings apart and swatted at air cars. “It doesn’t matter anymore. All we can do is try to save as many as we can and destroy those fiends.”
“Sir, we need to get you to safety, and I’d advise against ordering the warships here. I honestly don’t think they stand a chance against those things. We’d just be sending good men to their deaths and lose the ships. We should abandon the city and regroup.”
“And then what? Run and hide? Those things will probably hunt us!”
Maynart spread his hands. “We can’t beat them, sir. If we fight, we’ll just be wiped out. At least if we retreat into the countryside, we can set up an operations HQ, hide the ships, and strike back whenever possible. Some of those things are over five hundred yards tall.”
“Where’s my family?”
“Safe, sir. They’ve already been evacuated to a bunker in Gelldon, along with some of your ministers and their families.”
The soft crumps of distant explosions drew Randoman’s attention back to the vista, where a skyscraper toppled, shedding dust, glass and papers. He winced as it struck smaller buildings as it fell, flattening them, and disintegrated into bricks and dust when it hit the ground with a faraway rumble. Citizens who had been evacuated from suburban areas devastated by the quakes a few days before were housed in the city centre, where most of the buildings had been built to withstand quakes, unlike the low-cost housing on the outskirts. The death toll would be horrendous, but he knew Maynart was right. How could they fight gigantic monsters made from earth and fire?
Randoman recalled his history lessons at school about how fiends had first been detected. The discovery of inter-dimensional matter seventy-eight years ago had sparked much excitement amongst the scientific community, and, soon thereafter, scanners had been invented to detect it. That had led to the discovery of the blue energy source that now powered everything, but also the existence of dark matter, which had proven dangerous. There had been hopes of using it as a weapon, but nothing could contain it except lodestones, which would not discharge it. Then dark forms had been detected and tracked. Scientists had decided that these were dangerous inter-dimensional entities, and the religious cults had called them fiends. The name had stuck, despite its shady origins.
The first ships equipped with dark matter scanners had found a few man-sized fiends, and scientists had come up with a way to destroy them, using lasers and lodestones. Soon after, the ships had been unable to find any. Of course, back then, the mirror shield technology that made the ships invisible had not been invented. When they had started exploring the Wastes, they had found fiends and more powerful entities, now known as dra’voren. Several ships had been lost before mirror shielding was invented. When he had taken office, four years ago, the stealth ship project had been under debate. Many ministers had argued that it was pointless hunting dra’voren in the Wastes, squandering precious resources.
The project had been scaled back, and no stealth ships had been built since then. Instead, resources had been concentrated on the war with Vockroy. Perhaps that had been part of the fiends’ plan to distract them. Even if he had a flotilla of stealth ships now, though, there was no way the giant earth fiends, which had to weigh thousands of tonnes, would fit into a shredder room. The city was doomed.
A medium-sized earth fiend stomped along a road two blocks away, its thudding footfalls making the floor shiver and the windows rattle. Bricks, glass and steel reinforcing mottled its soil, and, at each step, more paving, tar and blocks were ripped from the road and nearby buildings to enlarge it. His stomach churned as he wondered if there were any corpses in the mix. Smoke darkened the sky, where air cars fled the city, swerving to avoid towering fiends. The wall screen went dead and filled with static.
“Sir,” Maynart insisted, “we need to go, now.”
Randoman went to his desk and picked up his report recorder, then scooped up several data bars and stuffed them into his pockets. If he was going to run the government from exile, he needed as much information as he could bring.
The colonel said, “Sir, leave that. We have no idea if fiends are heading this way.”
“I need my reports and analyses, Colonel, and we can hear those things coming for miles.”
“I ordered your assistant to transfer the info to the bunker in Gelldon, sir. Only the earth fiends are noisy; there are others that are silent, especially the air fiends.”
Randoman stared at him, aghast. “Air… fiends?”
“Yes sir. Please, we have to go.”
Maynart opened the door. A group of tough-looking men in camouflage uniforms, armour and helmets waited outside, hands on their weapons. Randoman’s assistant stared at them from his desk, his expression stunned and disbelieving. Randoman headed for the door, snatching his coat from the hook beside it. A gritty whump behind him made him look back. The back of his office caved in under a massive stone fist, and bricks and roof tiles sprayed across the room as the windows shattered. Choking dust enveloped him. Colonel Maynart seized the president’s arm and shoved him at the door as the men outside rushed in to haul him to safety.
Something brushed Bane’s neck, and he spun, his hands raised, to face empty air. A soft snigger from behind him made him whip around again. He rubbed his stinging neck, his hand coming away bloody. The invisible entity was not an air demon, for there was no smell. Another skirl of laughter made him turn. An invisible foe was hard to fight, but two could play at that game. He cloaked himself and listened for sniggers. He turned twice more before it came again, beside him, just as something stabbed him in the flank.
Bane clasped the wound, cursing. The frisson of dark power he could sense when dark gods became invisible evidently gave away his position to a certain degree, and his enemy had only to keep stabbing at the area to eventually skewer him. He unleashed an unfocussed swathe of dark fire, and then waited. A blade pierced his flank from behind, sliced across his ribs and emerged from his chest. Bane spun, ripping the weapon from its wielder’s grip, and more sniggers came from behind him. He groped for the sword’s hilt and tried to tug it out, but the angle was awkward and the pain searing. With a grunt, he Moved to Retribution’s mess hall.
Bane sank down on the nearest vacant couch, his breath catching. Mirra cried his name and hurried to his side. Drevarin jumped up and hastened over to examine the injury.
“It is not too serious,” he said. “It is just under the skin.”
“Just pull it out,” Bane gritted.
“I will do it.” Kayos appeared and strode towards them, Sherinias trotting at his heels.
Mirra and Drevarin moved aside, and the Grey God placed a hand on Bane’s side, dulling the pain as he drew the weapon out. Bane leashed his power while Kayos healed the wound.
He straightened to frown at Bane. “There is only one thing that could attack you like that.”
Bane nodded. “A dark angel. Wonderful. As if I do not already have enough to deal with.”
Kayos inspected the crude sword. Sherinias perched on another couch, and Mirra settled next to Bane and slipped her hand into his.
“The tra’mith is a grave danger to you,” Kayos said.
“Well, he does not have a weapon anymore…”
“He will find another and harry you from the Channels, and you can do little against him. Your power will not harm him, and he will not allow you enough time to strike or burn him.”
“What do you suggest?”
“You must call Majelin and Sarmalin.”
Bane grimaced. “I would rather not. A dark angel will be dangerous to them, too, especially if demons join
the fray.”
“They can find this angel in the Channels. I am sure they seek him there, but the Channels are not an ideal hunting ground. They form portals between all places, and exist on the very edge of reality, where many light creatures dwell. Only angels and Grey Gods can sense them, but we found that if we tried to enter one, we destroyed it, so we sent the angels to explore them. They cannot explain them, but they seem to be a remnant of the universe’s creation, from the time before we ordered it.”
“Light gods can kill tra’mith. Carthius slew thousands.”
“There were no Channels in his domain. The tra’mith will use them to avoid us now, and if we join this battle on your side, they will know you are not a true dark god. They will hide and attack you when we are not there. You killed his brethren, so he wants vengeance. A more troubling thought is that he may summon more, and they will follow you and attack whenever they see an opportunity. He must be dealt with now.”
“He is invisible, and he leaps in and out of Channels.”
“Yes,” Kayos said. “He is wary. He knows there is a chance you could strike him if he was only invisible, but not if he is in a Channel.”
Bane rose. “I should return before he follows me here.”
The Grey God nodded, and Bane Moved back to the skyscraper. He summoned a sword, raised a series of staggered shields around him and stretched forth his senses to detect the next attack. The angel displaced air when he moved, and made slight sounds. The shields would prevent direct attacks, forcing him to move around them, thereby slowing him down and giving Bane more of a chance to detect him before he struck. For the moment, he remained visible, so the tra’mith could find him. He did not want to call upon Majelin, at least, not yet. He only needed to strike the tra’mith once, and the battle would be over.
Several minutes passed while the dark angel presumably hunted for him in the Channels, or perhaps sought another weapon. Bane sensed movement beside him and slashed at it, slowing time, but his sword swished through air. A searing pain in his back made him stagger, and he whipped around and grabbed sleek pinions that were yanked from his grasp. A tra’mith stepped from the air several paces away and regarded Bane with ink-black eyes. Bane wondered where he had gained another sword so quickly. Perhaps he had a stash.
When Angels Fall (Demon Lord) Page 23
